Tag Archives: POTUS

Outside of children who are big fans of those Planes movies, nowhere in American society is a single aircraft more iconic than Air Force One. When we fly our President around, we fly him in style, in a cutting-edge jet that can survive a direct blast from a nuclear bomb and is exclusively piloted by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. Okay, neither of those things are true, but Air Force One is so mythic that a decent handful of you absolutely took us for our word there.

Air Force One is an American icon, both over and underappreciated at the same time. So we decided to take a moment to sit you down (you are sitting, right?) and tell you about the history of our President’s super expensive charter jet. And since we’re feeling generous, we’ll just let you know about every Air Force One plane that has ever existed, partly because we like to be as thorough as we can when it comes to discussing presidential aircraft, but mainly because we want as many excuses to post scenes from the movie Air Force One on our site.

Back in the 2004, as we were relishing in the early-mid-aughties, a song came out that had lyrics we found particularly inspiring. “It’s so much better on holiday/ that’s why we only work/ when we need the money.” These American words, written by Franz Ferdinand (oh shit wait they’re from Glasgow, uh, shit shit uh, how about…) AC/DC really sum up the mindset of a nation that founded by a holiday (the 4th of July) and uses holidays to celebrate everything from the brutal subjugation of asshole natives who were acting like they owned the land they had lived on for generations (Columbus Day) to the brutal subjugation of asshole natives who had the audacity to try to tell us how to grow corn (Thanksgiving). You stick the seed in the ground, we’re pretty sure we can take it from here, now give us New York please.

Yeah that’s about right

Of course, the origins of holidays have very little to do with their American purpose. Cinco De Mayo used to be a mild celebration over a battle that the Mexican army won in 1862, but now it’s a way for us to celebrate getting drunk on Tequila while letting American school children worry school officials by wearing in-your-face American flag paraphernalia. In the long run, if it gets us out of work, or school, we don’t really care too much about the origin of holidays. Non-Christians that complain about the fact that they “have” to take a day off of work on Christmas are the grown-up equivalent of the nerdy kid in school who demands that the teacher give the class a pop quiz. No one has ever liked them, because they’re annoying, now take your free day and like it.

Or else

So with that in mind, and in honor of today being the Fourth of July, this week AFFotD will present for you a a week devoted to the discussion of the American qualities of each Holiday. We’re here to start with every Federal (ie, public offices are closed by it) holiday, and rank them in terms of their Americanness, from worst to first.